Economics and Technologies

Community-based alternatives for production, consumption, and exchange

This section features stories of initiatives that help to create an alternative to the dominant neo-liberal or state-dominated economy. These include: localisation of economic activity with democratic control, producer and consumer collectives, local currencies and trade, non-monetised exchage and the gift economy, ecologically sensitive products and processes, macro-economic concepts that respect ecological limits, and approaches to human well-being that go beyond growth, GDP and other narrow measures and indicators.

What we do not feature are superficial and false solutions, such as market and technological fixes for problems that are deeply social and political, or more generally, ‘green growth’ kind of approaches that only tinker around with the existing system.

In Delhi, a bank run by street children for street children

It was established in 2001 to give the Delhi street children a safe haven to store money and steer them in the right direction.

Describing and intervening: Exploring the plurality of STS in India

Understanding how scientific knowledge is socially constructed, particularly in this era of post-truth and alternative facts.

Poor Women Craft Their Destiny

A compelling and inspiring story of resolute perseverance, of the power of the human spirit, and of the dignity of people struggling to escape poverty.

Women in Gir stand up for dignity of widows

Sorath Mahila Vikas Mandali’s journey conveys how the collective power of women can bring about progressive change and transform lives.

Successful self-governance in Barkheda leads others to embrace gram swaraj

Restoration and effective management of village commons here leads neighbouring villages to self-governance

Environmental & Economic Sustainability, Social Harmony and Social Transmutation : an example towards Self-rule/Swaraj

On an average, around one hundred people worked daily for around one and a half years to dig the canal through the mountain.

Amid fund crunch, CGNet Swara eyes shift to Bluetooth radio tech

Under the Digital India campaign, optical fibre cables are being laid at the village level. That makes it possible for “Bluetooth radio" to work.

Weaving harmonious threads of change

Women of a small village in Uttar Pradesh are weaving not just colorful yarn but also communal harmony in their region.

A Gandhian in Nagaland

The story of an extraordinary woman from an Ao Naga village who embraced Gandhian thought in the charged 1950s